5 Steps for Correcting a Failing Campaign

You’ve launched a campaign, and despite following your usual recipe for success, it’s failing to bring the engagement that you were looking for. You hate to be in this position, and sometimes it’s unavoidable, but a failing campaign is not a lost cause—and you can recover from it. Prepare for the worst of times with our 5 steps for correcting a failing campaign.

Don’t Stay The CourseThe absolute worst thing you can do with a campaign that isn’t moving the needle is leaving it alone. Don’t wait for a miracle, your campaign will only get better if you take action—there’s no wind in your sails, so start paddling.

Learn From Past AnalyticsGain what you can from the first days of your failing campaign. Who did you target, men, women, the young, the middle-aged, the elderly? Look at who responded the most in the first few days, and refocus your efforts. Did the first hashtag you paired with your campaign fail to catch on? Maybe it’s time to switch to your second hashtag. Did you run multiple images during the first few days? If so, which did best? Look at the differences between the images and try to recognize why one might have done better than the other.

Give Your Campaign A Day OffYou could certainly reinvent your campaign in less than 24 hours. You could rush through it and follow all of these steps in a single day at the office—but will your brand really benefit from that? Your campaign didn’t click with your audience, so instead of sending more of the campaign down the pipeline, give them a day of refreshing content. Stick to your roots, produce something that’s significantly different from the campaign, and reassure the audience that you’re still about quality content made for them.

Restart With A New LookThe reincarnation of your failed campaign should look brand new. Let’s say the old campaign was red—if your new campaign is also red, your audience may dismiss it as the old red campaign they weren’t interested in. If your new campaign is blue, it stands out, it’s different than what came before, and your audience will treat it like a new campaign. This new look says “we heard you, and we went back to the drawing board.”

Jump In With Both FeetThis is it. You don’t get to reboot the reboot of your original campaign, so jump in with both feet and commit to it. Between learning from the past analytics, taking a day off, and giving your campaign a fresh coat of paint, there’s no room for doubt, and you should have taken every possible step to make sure you get it right on the 2nd Sticking with your 2nd attempt shows your audience that you’re adaptable and confident.